


Left Behind

by eerian_sadow



Series: Avalon [20]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Gen, Major character death - Freeform, Violence, bring all your tissues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-07
Updated: 2010-08-07
Packaged: 2018-05-16 18:24:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5836081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eerian_sadow/pseuds/eerian_sadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bluestreak and Shatter take their cadets on a training mission. It goes very, very wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> written for [](http://tf-speedwriting.livejournal.com/profile)[tf_speedwriting](http://tf-speedwriting.livejournal.com/)'s Saturday Aug. 7, 2010 round.

It should have been nothing at all. It certainly shouldn’t have been difficult or dangerous. It should have been routine training and nothing more.

Already, there was one cadet lying on the ground, bleeding out coolant and energon faster than Shatter could seal it off.

The distinctive report of Bluestreak’s rifle sounded over his head—literally, as his parent stood over him to provide cover—as he worked. Around him, he could hear the other cadets firing into the Decepticon force that had ambushed them on this backwater rock.

“How’s that evac coming, Blue?” the scientist asked calmly, unwilling to let his fear transfer down into the young mech he was attempting to repair.

“Combat zone’s too hot,” Bluestreak replied tensely. “We want an evac, we have to make a run for it.”

Shatter shuttered his optics for a moment. Running would mean leaving the cadet—Primus, he didn’t even know the young mech’s name—behind to die; none of them were built to carry passengers. “Fuck.”

Laser fire peppered the ground around them and Shatter snapped his shutters open in time to see the cadet take a solid hit to the chest. The young mech’s optics widened in shock and pain as his spark casing was cracked open by his crushed chest plates. The scientist gripped his hand as the younger mech’s spark flared hot enough to leave carbon scorches on his face plates.

Shatter was grateful that the cadet was already grey before his spark imploded.

Bluestreak returned fire, bringing the scientist back to the moment. “Shatter, get the kids and get out of here. Burn Off is on the ground and waiting two kilometers west of our location.”

“Blue, no—“

“That’s an order, Shatter. I’ll stay and provide cover long enough for you to get clear.” The sharpshooter-turned-ops head fired another shot. “I’ll be right behind you. Go.”

He didn’t like it, and Bluestreak obviously knew it. They both also knew that no one would know if he disobeyed an order from his superior out here in the middle of nowhere. But he also knew Blue was right, and if they didn’t retreat now and make Burn Off’s extraction point, they were all going to die here.

“Yes, sir.” He opened a comm line to the remaining cadets and issued their orders.

Almost as one, the cadets broken and ran. He watched them for a few moments, long enough to verify that they weren’t panicking and were headed in the right direction, before turning toward the Decepticons.

“Blue, duck.” He waited for his parent to do as told. They had covered retreats this way a hundred times and he knew Bluestreak wasn’t likely to argue.

When Blue ducked down, Shatter turned off his vocal filter and screamed. He allowed himself to vent all his anger and pain at the Decepticons and their unprovoked attack in the shout as the sonic weaponry in his vocalizer did what it was designed to do. Over the top of his voice, he could hear the pop and crack of optics and windshields breaking and the tinkle of glass falling to the ground. He wouldn’t have taken out every Decepticon on the field, but he would have incapacitated a lot of them. Bluestreak stood back up the moment he fell silent and Decepticons immediately began falling under his steady aim.

“Get out of here, Shatter. I’ll be right behind you.”

Without any further arguments, Shatter transformed and flew off after the retreating cadets. If there were any more Decepticons between them and the extraction point Burn Off had set up, they would need him to provide air support while they made for the shuttle.

Primus, none of these kids had been ready for this.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Bluestreak remained calm as Shatter and the cadets retreated. He focused on the Decepticons still standing in front of him, shooting as quickly as possible to keep them from regaining their wits and coming after him—or the kids—with a vengeance. The damage reports his systems were screaming at him barely registered now; the shot he had taken during the first moments of the assault had numbed his processor to them. The cascade failure of his internals had really become meaningless after his cooling system and energon pump both shut down.

He had always known that Skywarp and Thundercracker had killed him that day in the clearing—he just hadn’t realized it would take seventy years for it to happen.

Another Decepticon fell to his rifle—they were starting to come around now—and he felt a pang of regret for not being able to say goodbye to Shatter. But the Seeker had needed to be able to get the cadets away, and knowing that one of his parents was dying in front of him was not the way to ensure that. Shatter and those five cadets were much more important than he was, anyway.

They were the future; he was just a relic of a past best left forgotten.

Two more Decepticons fell to well placed shots and he opened his end of the spark bond with Sunstreaker as wide as he could. He had always thought Jazz had been crazy when the saboteur had talked about Prowl saying goodbye this way, but now he understood. He gave everything he had left to his mate—all of the love, happiness and hope for the future he held in his spark—and said goodbye.

He hoped Sunny would be able to make Shatter understand.

His thoughts grew sluggish as his processor began to overheat. With no fans and no coolant circulating through his frame, he heat generated by his internals would begin to melt things fairly quickly. He was vaguely surprised that it didn’t hurt more. He fired, again and again and again, and three more Decepticons fell.

He couldn’t feel the rifle in his hands anymore.

Finally, one of them lifted a weapon and pointed it at him. Bluestreak fired again—or thought he did; he couldn’t tell anymore. The Decepticon fired.

Bluestreak fell, rifle dropping out of fingers that no longer had the ability to stay closed.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Longshot watched the end of the ramp, waiting for Bluestreak like Shatter had told him to.

Burn Off had been in pieces—along with at least two Decepticons and part of a grenade belt—around the shuttle when they arrived. The shuttle’s plating had been scorched and blackened in spots, but she was still flyable. Shatter had ordered him to wait by the ramp for Bluestreak, and then stomped inside to get the ship off the ground.

Longshot didn’t think their training officer was coming, though, and he could see three Decepticon fliers closing in on their position from the north. And even if Bluestreak was coming, he would never make it before they did.

If he wanted anyone on the team to survive, they had to go. Now.

He sprinted up the boarding ramp and hit the controls to close it once he was inside. The rest of his team looked at him in surprise, but he ignored them. Later, he would have to explain, but right now survival was far more important.

And Bluestreak had always said that making the hard decisions was part of being a leader.

Longshot slapped a hand against the comm panel. “We’re all here. Get us out of here, Shatter.”

Someday, he hoped the scientist would be able to forgive him.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

He had been forced to resign to be able to come out to the training site to attempt to retrieve Bluestreak’s body. He supposed that he could have gone over the base commander’s head to Optimus or Rodimus, but after this he couldn’t find it in him to be a soldier anymore, anyway.

It hadn’t ever been what he wanted; he’d only done it because he wanted to know he’d done something to make his parents proud. He had been considering his resignation for a few years now—since he finally clued in to the fact that Blue and Sunny would be proud of him no matter what he was doing.

He just wished he’d have the chance to tell Blue that he understood that now.

Bluestreak had fallen exactly where Shatter had left him. The Decepticons hadn’t even bothered to loot his body or pick up the rifle laying on the ground nearby. The scientist was grateful for that; he didn’t think he would have been able to take the sight of Bluestreak laying on the ground with his plating ripped off and his subspace pockets torn open.

And the rifle should go to someone who would respect and care for it, not used until it fell apart from disrepair.

The cadet who had died on the field had also escaped the scavenging process. Both mechs were peaceful and still on the ground, looking for all the world like they just needed a medic to get them back on their feet despite the grey of their chassis. Bluestreak was even wearing that peaceful smile he always wore when he thought about Sunstreaker.

Realizing that was too much for Shatter and he dropped to his knees and wailed his grief to the skies.  



End file.
